


Unsynchronized Steps

by MomentaryLicoris



Category: 19天 - Old先 | 19 Days - Old Xian
Genre: (but only a little) - Freeform, Fluff, Hanahaki Disease, Jian Yi is dumb and stupid but we've all been there, Light Angst, M/M, Pining, Self-Doubt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 22:47:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29973438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MomentaryLicoris/pseuds/MomentaryLicoris
Summary: Jian Yi has been waiting to die his whole life. He's gone through countless scenarios, all ending in the same grim fate - flowers consuming him from the inside out, overtaking his body until he can no longer speak a confession - not that he would have confessed anyway.So 'Why?' he wonders,'Why have the flowers not grown in my lungs?'The answer hits him all at once.
Relationships: Jian Yi/Zhan Zhengxi (19 Days)
Kudos: 12





	Unsynchronized Steps

Jian Yi has been waiting to die his whole life. He's gone through countless scenarios, all ending in the same grim fate - flowers consuming him from the inside out, overtaking his body until he can no longer speak a confession - not that he would have confessed anyway. Still,  _ years  _ after he realized he loved Zhengxi, the flowers haven't made a home of his chest. No beautifully striped carnations, no fragrant chrysanthemums blooming from the depths of his lungs. The buzzing anxiety that once overtook each quiet, lonely moment has long ago faded into a gentle acceptance. Each time a cough  _ didn't  _ end in a singular, bloodied petal came as more of a surprise. After all, unrequited love - especially after this long - almost definitely ends in a sea of flowers.

Surely, it has been long enough; they're nearly high schoolers now. A few girls in their class have already started hiding stray petals away in their bags, brushing off incessant coughing fits as a symptom of the cold. So  _ 'Why?'  _ he wonders, 

_ 'Why have the flowers not grown in my lungs?' _

The answer hits him all at once.

Zhengxi had waited at the school gate for him, just as he had the countless other times he had absentmindedly forgotten something inside the building. Xiao Hui had approached him when Jian Yi had bent to tie his shoelaces on the way back - a letter with a heart-shaped seal clutched to her chest. 

It makes Jian Yi's stomach tie in knots. 

Her words come in scattered phrases, obscured by distance. 

"Wanted me to give-"

A gust of wind, the rustling of leaves.

His heart starts to race. 

Jian Yi moves closer, leaning against a wall, pretending to be immersed in a phone call in which he does not respond.

"-talk to her. I know that Jian Yi is..."

His heart jolts in his chest at the mention of his name. Xiao Hui pauses, hesitant. He puts a foot forward, listening for a wrong syllable to pass her lips, the wrong word - ready to interrupt her at a moment’s notice. An anxious buzzing grows in the pit of his stomach.

"I know that Jian Yi is special to you." 

That's when it hits him. 

Zhengxi once ran into a fight, heedless of his own safety, to defend him.

He's squeezed his hand back, even when Jian Yi believed he had been deep into sleep.

He had turned down a perfectly sweet, beautiful girl for  _ him.  _

There was never even a single hint of doubt that when Jian Yi called, Zhengxi would always come. 

_ 'What is that, if not love?' _

His chest tightens, heart beating so loud in his ear that Xiao Hui's speech is drowned out entirely. In the mess of sensations, he lowers to his knees, breeze-chilled hands warmed by his face, waterline further reddening with each second. 

He really is an idiot. 

_ He already knew.  _

Zhan Zhengxi had loved him when he pressed a kiss to his forehead in the dead of night, reassuring him with a simple 

_ "I know." _

He had loved him when he had grabbed his hand, telling him to not fall again.

Every little reserved smile that Jian Yi had the pleasure of causing was a show of affection, each lingering glance a show of care. 

In his own way, Zhengxi loves Jian Yi back.

And Jian Yi had never doubted him. 

He had only doubted  himself - the brash one, one Zhengxi always had to save. Someone undeserving of the unyielding love, who never knew the boundaries; always teetering on the precipice of mutually assured destruction. And for what? The selfish, desperate need to be closer - to hold, to kiss? Oh, how unworthy he was of Zhengxi’s patience, his loyalty.

And only now, sobbing so violently that it shakes his entire being, does he realize that Zhengxi had never seen that; he has only ever seen his dear friend, the one always by his side, the one that he could never stop loving. 

His cheeks are burning hot, made hotter still by the tears streaming down his face, stopping where his mouth has upturned in a smile, breathless, soundless laughs falling from his tear-stained lips. 

Relief washes over him in a solid wave; years of anxiety, fear pulled away with each blow of the breeze, each rapid pulse of his heart.

_ He loves me, he loves me, he loves me.  _

The little flowers lining the walkway make him laugh even more, feeling suddenly oblivious, unaware of the entire world around him. 

His breaths come in harsh gasps that barely form into laughs as his tears slow, as Zhengxi finds himself alone at the school gate yet again. 

Jian Yi's phone buzzes in his pocket, a dull sensation in comparison to the overwhelming beating of his heart in his ears, the tear-blurred sight of of grass beyond his hands. The ringtone alone tells him it's Zhengxi calling. Another stunted chuckle falls from his lips as he dries his face, jacket rough against the corners of his eyes. He turns from his hiding place along the wall, walking out into the sunlit path where Zhengxi waits. 

"Xixi!"

He yells, voice uneven, raw. 

"I'm back!" 

The breeze feels refreshing against his face, wind cold against him as he runs, haphazardly into Zhengxi's arms - open, because he knows that Jian Yi will not stop before barreling straight into him.

"You better have everything; you were in there for long enough."

He pulls away from Zhengxi, draping an arm over his shoulders as they begin to walk. 

"Yep, I got everything." 

The lopsided step has never felt so natural, so pleasantly reliant on each of Zhan Zhengxi's steps. 

"Let's go home, Yi."

But within the unsynchronized footfalls, the hand clutching Zhengxi's shoulder, the smile playing on the fine line of Zhengxi's lips, Jian Yi was already home. 

**Author's Note:**

> In my interpretation of hanahaki, you only contract it if you doubt yourself, rather than your lover. Idk man I thought it would be an interesting spin on things. Also, I wrote the bulk of this at 4 A.M. so... :/  
> Thank you for reading!


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